A tale of bridges: Topology and architecture

Abstract

Topology, as its name indicates, is a (mathematical) way of conceiving of TOPOS: the place, the space, all space, and everything included in it. Jean-Michel Kantor evokes a few examples of forms and spaces which should be stimulating for all those interested in the concept of space, architects in particular. In topology, we no longer distinguish between two figures, two spaces, if you can pass from one to the other by means of a continuous deformation - with neither leap nor cut. Knots are a simple way of escaping from the obtuseness of space. Modern techniques of visualization developed for the military or for the Hollywood studios of Lucas Films can integrate the deformations on computer screens: the continued deformations of surfaces are discretized, that is, they are replaced by approximations produced at fixed intervals, then filmed in video. The time of the virtual corresponds to the era of topology, and architects are finding inspiration there.